Manchester City legend Dennis Tueart played with greats but would love to be part of Roberto Mancini masterclass

Dennis Tueart starred alongside Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff in
Major League Soccer and exhibition matches for New York Cosmos. He played
alongside Colin Bell with Manchester City and with Kevin Keegan for England.
Tueart has rubbed shoulders with the very best so it is some compliment when
he reveals: “I’d love to play in this City team.’’

Wonder strike: Manchester City legend Dennis Tueart scores with an overhead kick against Newcastle United in the 1976 League Cup finalPhoto: TRINITY MIRROR

As Roberto Mancini’s players step out into the flare-filled cauldron of the Stadio San Paolo for their Champions League clash in Naples tonight, Tueart will be tuning in from afar, admiring the forward line he graced in the Seventies and Eighties either side of his bite at the Big Apple.

“I always played well with interchangeable front men,” reflected Tueart, a wiry, fit 61 year-old. “We had it at Sunderland,City and the Cosmos. I was never a fixed wide-man. I was mobile. I was a right-footed left-winger. Now they are all doing it! Tony Book [former City manager] used to say to me: 'Start off wide, drift in and cause trouble’. I remember playing against Ron Harris at Chelsea. All of a sudden I shot inside and he went: 'What the ******* hell happened there?’ He caught me a few times!

“The top teams have interchangeable forwards who are a nightmare for defenders. Real Madrid and Barcelona play it now. Manchester United do it with Wayne Rooney. City do it. James Milner makes a goal for Mario Balotelli on the left. Then Samir Nasri does it. Edin Dzeko does it, dropping off, moving around. Sergio Agüero does it. They all interchange.

“David Silva is so different, a maverick, but it’s always for the team. I watched him and David Villa for Valencia. Villa got all the plaudits, but the little fellow made many of the goals. With the fourth goal we scored against United, there were no histrionics from Silva, no 'look at me’. He’s a team player.

“I want my mavericks to be winners, not losers. I played with Rodney Marsh at City. He was just selfish. Rodney is in it for Rodney. Look at his record. Nothing. Apart from QPR very early on. League Cup bits. Silva, Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney are mavericks who are winners. Rooney will cut someone’s throat to win the game.

“When I was on the board at City, Kevin Keegan and I went to see Rooney at 15. Everton beat us 3-1 at Goodison in the Youth Cup. Rooney scored two, outstanding. Kevin tapped Walter Smith on the shoulder and said: 'He’d be in my squad on Saturday’. We weren’t trying to get him. We couldn’t. Rooney was ring-fenced.”

Like Rooney, Tueart worked hard at his game. “I was always good at volleying. It’s about repetition. I’d always done overhead kicks for Sunderland. I did one at school when I was 14.”

Most famously, Tueart settled the 1976 League Cup final with an overhead kick, City’s last trophy until Yaya Touré brought them the FA Cup. “I was pleased with Yaya. It had gone on too long.”

City look a different team since that May day, more of a unit, more bonded. “You don’t need to be getting pissed together in a Chinese to bond. You bond automatically if you’re winning. I do like Mancini. I look at his CV: 18 years in the national game in Italy, captain of club and country, takes responsibility, up front person, good quality, good apprenticeship at Fiorentina and with Sven-Goran Eriksson at Lazio. Then he goes to one of the most politically sensitive clubs in the world, Inter Milan, and delivers seven trophies in four years. So he’s got to have something at the highest level, which is what we are pitching at.”

As well as the memory of his distinguished playing days, and steering the club through some turbulent times, Tueart helped City’s famous academy flourish. “I’d talk to the parents and say, 'We are going to work hard to make your son have a professional career but the minimum you’ll get from his time here is a fully rounded human being’. Look at players like Micah Richards. No airs and graces. Shaun Wright-Phillips is magnificent. So’s Nedum Onuoha.”

Tueart plans to ask the likes of Richards to assist him in raising funds for the Teenage and Young Adult Cancer unit at The Christie cancer centre in Manchester.

“Tom Cleverley is one of the supporters of the charity and I’m giving the royalties from my autobiography to the unit,” said Tueart, sitting in a canteen at The Christie after visiting some patients.

“You hear such heartbreaking stories. There was one father whose daughter had a chest infection. She went to see her GP. First time – antibiotics. Second time — antibiotics. Third time the same. Fourth time she could hardly get her breath. Cancer. She was referred too late. Dead at 20.” Tueart has grim experience of how cancer can invade family life.

“From 1973 to 1980, my star was in the ascendant but from ’80 to ’85 it was welcome to the real world. My dad died, 54, cancer. My uncle died, 49, cancer. My brother, Kevin, was diagnosed with a tumour. He was 24. 'Tumour?’ I thought. 'Christ. That’s game, set and match’. I went to the specialist. 'How much does it cost? I’ll pay for it’. I’m a bit of a control freak. As a footballer, you’re in a surreal bubble; there’s always a solution. But with this I just felt helpless. There was no solution but to hope and pray. Thankfully he survives.”

Tueart’s involvement with the Christie inevitably places football in its proper perspective. He worries about the attitude of some modern players. “If you keep telling them they are superhuman they’ll think they are superhuman. Players’ love of the game has diminished. They get in the comfort zone too early. When I was on the board at City, I had to write out the £600,000 pay-off cheque to Laurent Charvet. I could have vomited.

“Agents are a problem. One agent did a deal for one of our young players, got the deal, good deal, and said: 'Right, let’s talk about my fee’. I said: 'There’s nothing left’. The agent dropped the salary of the kid a couple of grand a week so we could pay him. The young lad thought it was great because he had gone from £12,000 to £25,000 and eventually got £23,000.’’

Frustration at his sport’s darker side is offset by the memory of playing with some of the greats. “I remember trying to explain cricket to Beckenbauer. I was punch-drunk by the time I gave up.”